Mumbai win against improved Kolkata

With last time's hammering still fresh in their minds, given that it happened just 4 days ago, the Knight Riders looked to come out with more purpose this time against the Mumbai Indians. They certainly put up an improved show, but ulitmately fell short.

Mumbai had made two changes - bringing in Graham Napier for Dwayne Bravo and Ajinkya Rahane for Shikhar Dhawan, while Kolkata went in with the same side.

Tendulkar won the toss, and elected to bat. On a much slower wicket than the last time though, Tendulkar and Jayasuriya didn't find strokeplay as easy as before. Jayasuriya departed early, trying to hit Dinda out of the park, but only succeeding in edging it to the keeper. Mumbai sent in Harbhajan Singh at No.3, but the experiment didn't succeed, with Bhajji also falling early. Kolkata kept the pressure on, when Agarkar got Tendulkar. Tendulkar had hit the bowler for a six and a four, but ended up hitting a full toss straight to cover.When Nayar fell, just after the strategy break, Kolkata would have fancied their chances of keeping Mumbai to below 140, but in JP Duminy, Mumbai had their ace. He was kept quiet initially, and with wickets falling, he didn't attempt to hit out, but concentrated on getting the singles and twos. Graham Napier gave him some support, but it was after Napier's dismissal that Duminy stepped up a gear. The last four overs fetched Mumbai 51 runs, with Duminy scoring 36 off those from 15 balls. He ended the innings with his fourth 6, bringing up his fifty in the process. Mumbai ended up with 148 for 6, while Duminy had 52 not out off 37 balls - his second consecutive half-century.

Kolkata needed a good start from its openers to chase Mumbai's score, and the opening pair who walked out for Kolkata was a surprise - it was Sourav Ganguly who walked out with Chris Gayle. The decision made cricketing sense, because McCullum was out of touch, while Ganguly and Gayle were Kolkata's best batsmen. However, Kolkata hadn't reckoned with Zaheer Khan.

Ganguly was out off the first ball he faced, draggin one back onto his stumps, while Gayle was bowled when he failed to pick the slower one. Hodge and Morne van Wyk then started re-building the innings, and after a long time Kolkata looked to be competing on equal terms with another side. Hodge and Wyk added 89 runs for the third wicket, with Hodge reaching the first half-century by a Kolkata batsman this year. Even after van Wyk got out, Kolkata were in the hunt, until a game changing 17th over bowled by Malinga, where he conceded just 7 runs. That over was followed by an equally good one by Zaheer Khan, where Kolkata lost the wicket of Laxmi Ratan Shukla and scored just 8 runs, which left them with a mini-mountain of 23 runs from 2 overs. With McCullum dropping himself down the order, and joining Hodge, it was still possible, but Malinga conceded just 4 runs off his final over, to effectively seal the issue. To top it all, Hodge was run out for very fine 73 off 60 balls, desperately seeking a non-existent second run. 19 off the final over was always going to be very difficult to get, and Kolkata eventually lost by 9 runs.

However, unlike previous defeats, they can take some heart from this one, since they ran a strong team so close. A win might be all it takes for them to acquire the self-belief that is essential of winning teams, and if they can cobble together a win in their next match, they might yet give other teams a run for their money instead of just making up the numbers.

Turning Point of the Match: You could argue that the overs bowled by Malinga and Zaheer, turned the match Mumbai's way, and you'd be right. But it was JP Duminy who gave the Mumbai Indians a target to bowl at. The 18th over of the Mumbai innings, where he hit Shukla for two sixes was the moment when he started to free his shoulders and eventually took Mumbai to a match winning total.

Man of the Match: JP Duminy, who scored a well paced half century, and took the Mumbai total from merely competitive to very good. His staying there till the end, ensured that Kolkata couldn't slip in an over from a part-timer to make up the quota.

Soundbytes:

"oh well, that's generally my role in the team you know, get the ones and twos." - JP Duminy, who did run the ones and twos superbly, but also hit the maximum number of sixes (4) in the match.